Formerly a struggling single twenty-something

Sports, TV, The T….The Usual Suspects

So! It’s a great weekend for sports. The Sox begin the ALCS against Cleveland on Friday. My BC Eagles, who are ranked 4th in the country (!!!!! I know!!!! BC!!! We might actually make it to the BSC this year!!!! No, really!!!! Okay, enough with the obnoxious multiple exclamation points. (!)) are playing Notre Dame, and even though the Irish are 1-5 and beating them won’t be like my freshman year when we ruined their season, anyone who knows BC football knows how important the ND game always is to the BC community. Next year, when the game’s here, I am so buying tickets.

* * *I’ve seen three new shows this season and weirdly, all three (Chuck, Pushing Daisies, and Gossip Girl) have characters named Chuck.

Chuck is cute. That’s a weird word to use about a spy show, but that’s what it is. It’s cute. The creator is Josh Schwartz, who also did The O.C., and it’s kind of got the same nerd humor going on. It seems like once they develop the characters more and figure out where the plot is going, it will get even better. And I kind of hope that Bryce, the old roommate who sent Chuck the email that caused the images to be downloaded into his brain, isn’t really dead. I’m almost more interested in him than anyone else. Oh, yeah, and I love that Chuck completely unironically calls his sister’s boyfriend Captain Awesome. You know how on The Office Creed doesn’t get much screen time but he makes the most of what he has? That’s what Captain Awesome is to this show.

Josh Schwartz’s other show is Gossip Girl, and that’s…not quite as good. I’ve never read the books they’re based on, so I can’t comment on that, but as a teen drama, it’s more One Tree Hill than The O.C. There’s almost no humor and even less heart. The O.C. took place in a beautiful town full of rich people, but it focused on the outsiders. While Gossip Girl is also about rich, beautiful people (but in New York City instead of Orange County), it asks you to care about the insiders. And in the two episodes I saw, these high schoolers, who sleep with their friends’ significant others and have no trouble ordering martinis in bars, were pretty hard to sympathize with.

Then there’s Pushing Daisies, which is…unlike any show I’ve ever seen. After I saw the pilot, I thought it would have made a great movie, but I wasn’t sure how it would work as an ongoing show. But the second episode was pretty good, too. The problem, I think, is going to be keeping up the whimsy for a long period of time. The light, whimisical tone is best in small doses, so while I’m enjoying the show, I…almost hope it gets cancelled. At least then it will get to remain fresh and original forever instead of going stale.

* * *The T has apparently decided to play music in the stations. This afternoon I heard music in South Station. I don’t think I like this. What if I want to listen to my iPod instead? Or enjoy the relative quiet of a mostly empty T station, if I’m there at an off hour? And seriously, considering how slow the T is and what assholes most of the T drivers are, and considering that last Friday they suspended service during rush hour due to an extremely small trash fire in the Park Street station that was out before the dozens of fire trucks showed up…they decide to improve things with music?